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The Controversy of AT&SF Locomotive #3463

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The Minneapolis group who have been given the AT&SF 4-6-4 as a test bed say they are confident that they can create a higher-speed passenger rail locomotive that is cleaner, quicker, and cheaper than any locomotive on the market today.  <o:p></o:p> This proposal seems incredibly long on platitudinous rhetoric and short on substance.  The stated mission, coupled with its implications, suggests that the #3463 will be very extensively modified.  My interpretation is that it will require new piping, jacketing, cylinders, valves, drivers, rods, and exhaust nozzle.  Perhaps it will require new bearings of an improved design on all axles of the engine and tender as well.  Jacketing of the boiler, steam pipes, and cylinders will be superinsulated.  A streamlined shroud will be added.    <o:p></o:p> It may require a whole new boiler, but if not, it will at least require conversion to a gas producer firebox, which is said to be part of the plan.  This will require a different grate system plus the installation of many overfire secondary air inlets.  Each of these amounts to creating a small air tunnel piercing both walls of the firebox through the pressure vessel.  A GP firebox also needs a nozzle grid of steam distribution under the firebox to cool the fire.     <o:p></o:p> They intend to redesign the steam circuit, so this may require a new design for the throttle and the superheater.  Valves and valve passages are part of the steam circuit, but it is not clear what will be done to those details.   <o:p></o:p> It will require a new firing system for the pellets, and possibly a new feed water system.  This will be an automatic firing system controlled by the engineer.  I am guessing that there will be a lot of computerization applied to the controls, firing, and combustion process.  Overall, it seems likely that there will be extensive revision to the entire array of backhead controls.  <o:p></o:p> Also included will be a newly designed and built HEP generator for electrical power for a passenger train.  This will be powered by either a steam reciprocating engine or a turbine, and probably be mounted on the tender.  Such units may run around 500 horsepower, and this power has to come from the locomotive boiler.       <o:p></o:p> And with all this cutting, welding, machining, and re-designing, there will be bound to be limitations and compromises imposed by the fact that this is a remodel rather than starting with a clean sheet of paper.  When you spend this incredible amount of money on the new stuff, why on earth would you want even the slightest bit of compromise forced upon it by working around the remnants of the antique locomotive?  I find it most difficult to believe that it would not be cheaper to start with a clean sheet of paper than to hack up this antique locomotive and convert it.   <o:p></o:p> The only silver lining to this cloud is that this proposal seems so far into la la land that it may never reach the point of destroying Topeka’s historic locomotive gift from the AT&SF Ry.
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